Hard truth: your work isn't what's holding you back. Your storytelling is.
Plenty of people do great work, keep their heads down, and wait to be recognized and promoted, often leading to frustration and burnout.
The reality: promotions usually come down to a committee of senior leaders and HR, and they rarely scrutinize your packet line by line.
Budget sets the limit. Beyond that, they go on vibes, meaning the overall feeling they have about:
-
Your impact
-
Your ability to perform at the next level
With 10+ years across corporate and research as an intern, IC, and now manager, I'd unofficially add a third: likeability.
That feeling isn't formed at promo time. It's built over months, in every standup, update, and hallway conversation. That's storytelling.
Impact no one sees is impact that doesn't count. High performers know this, so they consistently frame their work in terms of the business. Most people have never been taught how.
Here's the difference in a typical engineering standup (it applies to any meeting):
- Ayo: "I've instrumented the workflow to track LLM token usage. Should be done in a few days."
- Priya: "So on the LLM stats story, LangSmith can't work since we call OpenAI directly, but I think a proxy layer could give us this basically for free. Still looking into it. Also my PR's been open three days if anyone can review."
- Maame: "We've been blind on LLM token spend, and Finance is pushing our VP to cut costs. My PRs for input and output token tracking are merged. My final PR, for cached token analytics, wraps tomorrow. This gives us the basis to track token spend and find opportunities to reduce it in specific parts of the pipeline. Once it's merged and deployed, I'll confirm the data's flowing and work with Finance on a cost-reduction plan."
Same project. Three very different careers.
Ayo: B. Fine. Forgettable. No business context, no real ETA.
Priya: C. Possibly the best idea in the room, delivered as a shrug. No decision, no ETA, and her ask buried at the end.
Maame: A. She's on the promotion track. Context, progress, ETA, next steps.
Notice how Maame hit the factors that matter: she tied her work to the VP's goals (impact), thought past her ticket to the Finance handoff (next level), and made her manager's life easier (likeability).
The formula:
- 1️⃣ Set the context
- 2️⃣ Share what's done and in progress
- 3️⃣ Give an ETA and next steps
Layoffs are everywhere. Nonchalant, directionless status updates make you look replaceable.
Every update is a chapter in your story. Ten minutes of prep before your next meeting. That's all it takes.
Your turn: Which one are you in standup? Tell me on LinkedIn (link below).
Behind the post
The two objections I hear most:
"This feels like self-promotion." It isn't. Context, progress, and an ETA are information your manager needs to plan, defend headcount, and make your case in rooms you're not in. Withholding it isn't humility. It's making them guess.
"My work should speak for itself." It does, but in a language most leaders don't have time to translate. A merged PR doesn't say "this saves Finance money." You have to.
The formula works beyond standups too: a Slack update, a weekly email, a hallway "how's it going?" Set the context, share what's done and in progress, give an ETA and next steps. Write it down before the meeting the first few times. After a month it becomes how you talk.
Part 2, on using your limited minutes with leadership, is Corporate Tip #25.